


She Is Their Present

by RainbowMatildas



Series: The Christmas Gems! [4]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Not really christmas but whatever, Square Mom is Best Mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 18:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8929024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainbowMatildas/pseuds/RainbowMatildas
Summary: After discovering Homeworld's fusion experiments in the Prime Kindergarten, Garnet knows she has to talk to Steven. He's never seen her come undone like that - he had to have been terrified. But maybe there are two Gems better than her for the job...





	

Garnet isn’t one person, but, then again, she’s not really two people, either. She is a union of love, the amalgamation of both her counterparts, but still more than just their sum.

She is Ruby’s warmth and Sapphire’s chill.

She is Ruby’s temper and Sapphire’s patience.

Out of Ruby’s past and Sapphire’s future, she is their present.

As she once told Stevonnie, Garnet is a conversation. She would never grow tired of living – of walking, and talking, and being. Everything, no matter what it was, was new and exciting. Ruby and Sapphire, on the other hand, had a combined fifteen millennia under their belts. That’s why they let her take the reins.

Ruby and Sapphire were always there, but not front and center. Garnet had evolved her own feelings and personality separate from the two of them, so she was perfectly capable to lead her own life. Ruby and Sapphire preferred it that way, and quite frankly, so did she. She loved it.

Still, there were some things a fusion just couldn’t do. Sapphire couldn’t feel Ruby’s fingers carding through her hair. Ruby couldn’t hear Sapphire hum under her breath. Neither could see or hear or touch the other, and in the end, that’s what brought them together in the first place.

So although they’d never planned on telling the other Crystal Gems, Garnet did allow herself to come apart every once and a while – not for long. Just a little while so they could remember why they fused in the first place. Then they were back together, back to being the strong, stoic leader of the Crystal Gems. Rose Quartz’s successor.

 _Unworthy successor,_ she thought to herself.

“What was that, Garnet?” Steven asked in his normal cheerful voice.

Garnet hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud. “Nothing, Steven,” she said smoothly. “Just thinking.”

She quickly turned away and retreated back into the safe haven of her room in the Temple. Gems don’t need to breathe, but she couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. That was a close one. Garnet exhaled slowly and sat down, resting her hands on her knees, palms facing up. She carefully inspected both gems for cracks or smudges, but, of course, she found none. They shone as brightly as ever.

 _He could’ve died,_ Ruby said. Somehow, without even a physical form to speak with, her voice shook.

 _He didn’t, though,_ Sapphire reminded her, but she didn’t sound convinced.

Garnet said nothing, but her silence said more than any words could. It’d been an intense mission, far more dangerous than she had anticipated. She never would have let Steven come along if she’d known about the fusion experiments in the Kindergarten. Heck, she wouldn’t have gone if she’d known about them.

That last part was a lie. She would’ve gone, but probably by herself. She nearly came undone, only sloppily smashed back together by pure willpower. The will to keep Steven safe. If she had allowed herself to unfuse, she isn’t sure whether they would’ve survived. Ruby was a soldier, trained to take down larger foes, but even she couldn’t have handled them easily. Sapphire, despite her higher status, had acquired skills of her own during the Gem War, but she still wasn’t built for fighting. Garnet was their only hope of keeping Steven alive, no matter how the fusion experiments made them feel.

Garnet groaned and buried her face in her hands. She knew she had to talk to him. Steven had only met Ruby and Sapphire once, and that hadn’t been under any better circumstances. He was going to start associating them with negative feelings if he didn’t meet them officially. Even Ruby, without Sapphire’s future vision, could figure out that much.

That would have to change.

* * *

The walk back from Connie’s was cold, but not too bad. Steven, having grown up by the beach for his whole life, always enjoyed the rare bit of winter that Beach City got each year. The cold was brief, and the snow even rarer, so he promised himself to always savor it.

So instead of going in right away once he arrived home, he lingered on the deck and looked out at the ocean. Garnet had sent Pearl and Amethyst on a mission earlier, and Garnet was bound to be in her room in the Temple. After watching the way she’d nearly come undone during yesterday’s mission, he knew she needed some time to get her thoughts in order. It had scared him to see her like that – caught between separated and together, just a bright glow with half a shape. But Crystal Gems didn’t get scared, he told himself firmly. He couldn’t be stupid. He forced himself to think of something else.

The ocean was bound to be freezing. It wouldn’t be suitable for swimming for several months. Ever since they had fused into Stevonnie there on the beach, it felt strange to hang out there as the two of them, but maybe in the spring he would bring her there for a picnic.

With that idea tucked in the back of his mind, he went inside, the screen door banging shut behind him. He turned to go up the stairs to his room, but stopped short when he sees the two Gems sitting on the couch.

“Hello, Steven,” Sapphire said with a small smile.

Ruby offered him a smile and a nod of welcome. “’Sup?”

He cocked his head. “Uh… hi. Did something happen?” He said nervously.

“No, not at all,” Sapphire shook her head. “We simply wanted to speak with you, if that’s alright.”

Steven knew that he couldn’t worm his way out of this one, no matter how hard he tried, so he reluctantly sat on the couch across from the two of them. “So… you promise everything is okay?"

Ruby laughed. “Everything’s fine, Steven.”

Sapphire nods in agreement. “Like I said, we just wanted to talk to you for a little bit. After the mission yesterday… well, we wanted to make sure you were alright,” she said with an awkward smile.

“I’m fine,” he said far too quickly. Ruby raised her eyebrows skeptically, and Steven knew that Sapphire was probably doing the same behind her bangs. “I… I mean…”

“It’s okay to not be okay, you know,” Ruby said gently. “We didn’t mean to scare you yesterday.”

Sapphire pushed his hair back from his face. Her fingers were cold to the touch. “You’ve grown up fast, Steven, and we are extremely proud of you. But everyone can have their limits tested at times.”

He paused, twiddling his thumbs in his lap. “I… it wasn’t Garnet that freaked me out,” he admitted after a moment.

Ruby and Sapphire glanced at each other, but said nothing.

“I… I know you and the others don’t want to scare me by talking about the War, but… for a moment, before I understood what those experiments really were–” he shuddered – “I felt like I was in it. I had no idea what was going on… I thought it was the War all over again.” He looked at the ground.

“We won the War,” Sapphire reminded him with a small frown.

“But you’re afraid we won’t win the next one,” Ruby cut her off.

He nodded, refusing to meet either of their gazes.

She sighed and tapped his knee, making him look up at her. She fixed him with her most comforting smile. “Do you remember when you got that Rubik’s Cube? And you spent forever trying to figure it out because there’s so many ways to do it?”

Steven nodded again, still unsure where she was going.“There’s over four quintillion different ways that the faces of your Rubik’s cube can work out, and only one solution. But people solve them all the time – Pearl did it in fifty-seven seconds,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with this?” Steven asked.

“The odds aren’t always in our favor, Steven. But we still have every reason to hope we’ll still win.”

Sapphire smiled and took Ruby’s hand in hers, gently intertwining their fingers. “I don’t know if a war is coming, Steven. But I know that whatever happens, the Crystal Gems will figure something out. We always do.”

Steven finally looked up at them and smiled, a real smile that nearly split his face in two. “You guys had better still unfuse for my birthday.”


End file.
